Peter Zumthor
Swiss · 1943–
Pritzker Prize-winning architect who designs through atmosphere and material presence, creating buildings like Therme Vals that engage all the senses.
Wikipedia ↗“The real core of my work is the way materials interact with each other, how they meet and what happens in between.”
English
“Architecture has its own realm. It has a special physical relationship with life. I do not think of it primarily as either a message or a symbol, but as an envelope and background for life which goes on in and around it, a sensitive container for the rhythm of footsteps on the floor, for the concentration of work, for the silence of sleep.”
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“Perhaps poetry is unexpected truth. It lives in stillness. Architecture's artistic task is to give this still expectancy a form.”
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“Quality architecture to me is when a building manages to move me.”
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“We perceive atmosphere through our emotional sensibility — a form of perception that works incredibly quickly.”
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“I work very hard to get the beauty of plain things.”
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